ALONE ON A BOREAL STAGE

Friday, March 27, 2015

...titled "Climate Change" is included in Cocoa Cabin, a delicious-looking chapbook anthology now available from Phafours Press. Out of all the poems I've ever written, this one begs to be made into an action flick.

Cocoa Cabin will be launched on April 8th, 2015 in Ottawa at A Thing for Chocolate, 1262 Wellington At W. 7:30pm.Cocoa Cabin can be purchased online at Etsy. Thank you to Pearl Pirie for including my piece. Film rights are available.

Friday, March 06, 2015

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Today, in celebration of the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild’s 45th birthday, the Guild honoured Ken Mitchell as a founding member by dedicating their library in his name, a fitting tribute to a great writer, leader, mentor, and inspiration.

I imagine every Saskatchewan writer who has been involved with the various writing and arts organizations in this province has at one time sat around a meeting table with Ken Mitchell. I have more than once and learned so much from the experience.

Prior to the dedication and unveiling, Ken Mitchell delivered a great Write After Lunch presentation titled “Writing and the Community,” something which I've been thinking about a lot lately. He talked about the importance of folk culture in our social development and the need to preserve our stories. He told us how important this region and this culture is to his life. As a founder, he recognized the need to "keep writers here and engaged" and, as anyone who knows anything about Saskatchewan literary history knows, he has dedicated more than 45 years to this work. This in addition to his more than 30 books - novels, poetry, dramas and histories - that have taken stories of this place and its people to provincial, national and international audiences. We're the richer for it. And his work and innovation continue.

I posted this pic of Bohemian Waxwings on Facebook prior to the presentation. I took the pic through the triple pane window this morning while sitting here in my chair. The flock fed and passed berries back and forth for the duration of the talk. They're still at it. Waxwings, too, know much more than I ever will about the importance and workings of community.

MY ROLE

MY BOOKS

.

"Whether describing thunder or the flight patterns of ptarmigan, Schmidt does so poetically with a great sense of timing and rhythm. She has the sort of narrative voice that makes sitting in the grass keeping an ear out for birds philosophical and lively – something worth listening to." - Devin Pacholik, Global News Regina.Read more.

"Evoking the work of Don McKay, Trevor Herriot and Gerald Hill, Schmidt walks in some pretty big footsteps, and more than measures up. These essays colonize the middle ground between deep connection with place and concern for its ecological future, constantly questioning our troubled relationship with prairie process." - Judges' citation, Saskatchewan Book Award for Nonfiction nomination. Jurors: Barry Ferguson, Wayne Grady, Barry Grills.

"You can just feel the stones rattling off your undercarriage on this Grid." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"Like the Prairies, this is not a collection that gives itself away: the true beauty of this book lies in subtleties that may not be obvious at first glance." - Emily McGiffin, The Malahat Review. Read more.

"In Grid, moments are approached in their apparent stability only to be swept away in song rife with interruption and fresh stimuli, lending a new perspective. It is as though the familiar ground is an eye glancing back and the reflection only a nodal-point, open to opportunity and play." - Justin Dittrick, SPG Book Reviews.Read more.

"There is grit in these poems, so much that it seems unfair to think of them as nature poems; like the best nature writing, they undo our expectations of nature rather than uphold them." - Tanis MacDonald, Arc Poetry Magazine. Read more.

"In her fourth collection Grid, Schmidt’s wry humour transcends what we have watched heap up in Canada for more than a century—nature poems—balancing in canola fields between the beautiful lure of nature and our curious urge to separate ourselves from disappearing allotments of our own solace. We have wandered “off the grid” but fortunately Schmidt is an entertaining and insightful guide who can still find Li Po in a Dark-eyed Junco, if she has to." - Garry Thomas Morse, Jacket 2. Read more.

"Throughout More Than Three Feet of Ice, Schmidt reconfigures the commonplace elements of the North, what she knows, and what she doesn't know to achieve startling nuances. In her hands the seemingly insignificant is imbued with meaning and becomes an extraordinary book." - Lynda Grace Philippsen, Books in Canada.